Loyalty Programs that Drive Conversion: a Direct Marketing Technique that Works

Conversion Marketing-Communications, a finalist in CAMP’s 2016 Marketing Awards takes Direct Marketing to a whole new level
Conversion Marketing-Communication’s vision in 2010 was to create the best-in-class loyalty and CRM programs for top Canadian brands. Six years later they are sitting as Canada’s leading loyalty and CRM expert, creating award-winning loyalty solutions for clientele including LCBO, Second Cup, SiriusXM, and Kobo. Conversion Marketing-Communications helps clients create data-driven, measurable campaigns that improve customer engagement, increase loyalty and maximize profit. Their clients love working with them because they’re friendly, collaborative, and hard-working and love what they do.
Conversion Marketing-Communications is an independent agency that designs effective loyalty programs as well as intelligent email communications. They utilize email as a superior digital channel. They apply traditional direct marketing’s best practices to enhance the performance and relevance of email, including success factors adapted to a digital medium like targeting, timing, offers, great content and personalization to reach your customers directly. Email presents a proven way to generate significant ROI as it improves customer acquisition by forty times that of social media. Email presents a medium with more room for your message, call to action, better targeting and timing than other channels, lower costs to deliver and is useful to companies as they have permission to contact customers who have already signed-up for your communications.
Kobo Campaign
Kobo is a global brand and a powerhouse in the eBooks market, although they were faced with a clear-cut problem: How could they drive higher sales with their customer base around the world without aggressively discounting their product? Two of the biggest and savviest companies in the world, Amazon and Apple present themselves as Kobo’s largest competitors. It was critical of Conversion Marketing-Communications to come up with a way to drive higher sales by capitalizing on what Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iBook were missing: a strong loyalty program, which was a natural fit and a smart strategy for Kobo.
The key to their campaign was to thank Kobo’s loyal customer base with what they value the most: eBooks. The program had to be engaging, well-designed, financially viable and most importantly, scalable to their existing loyalty program. Since the program is not widely advertised, the membership needs to rely on Kobo’s email, referrals, and in-device messaging to spread the word.
Kobo Super Points was launched as a new initiative in October 2015, allowing customers to automatically receive points when purchasing eligible Kobo eBooks, which launched in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. The program is divided into two tiers in order to cater to all customers. The first tier, Free Membership, offers readers 100 Super Points for every $10 that is spent on eBooks and magazines, plus occasional “Bonus Points” days where additional points can be earned. The second tier, known as VIP Membership, is a way for avid readers to earn rewards even faster. With an annual fee of $10, members earn double the points on every purchase, receive 10% off purchases from a list of over one million titles, and collect one free eBook of their choice each year. For each tier, members can see their points accumulate through the new and intuitive Kobo Super Points dashboard. At the time of launch, a contest was created for customers to tell why they love to read to win Super Points. The goal was to drive strong awareness to this exciting new program.
The Kobo Super Points was launched on time and on budget in October of 2015, kick-starting a very successful campaign where Kubo exceeded the annual goal for top-tier members in just a matter of two weeks. Unit sales were up by over 30 percent surpassing their goal of 5 percent, churn was reduced by over 10 percent surpassing their goal of 8 percent, they acquired over 64,000 paid VIP memberships surpassing their goal of 6000, and over 800 million points have been earned and 48,000 eBooks redeemed. This has led to the program drastically reducing reliance on margin-hurting price discounts. “While we’re constantly looking for ways to amplify the reading experience, we also remain focused on how we can delight our new and existing customers,” said Michael Tamblyn, President, Rakuten Kobo Inc. “The Kobo Super Points program is our way of acknowledging loyal readers for doing what they love most, and we look forward to thanking our customers by rewarding them with the content they enjoy.” Between Kobo’s Super Points loyalty program and weekly targeted emails containing personalized recommendations, Kobo ensures their customers feel both connected and appreciated.
What’s next for Conversion Marketing-Communications?
Conversion Marketing-Communications will continue to assist existing and future clients in creating smart, measurable solutions for their marketing needs. They are committed to providing best-in-class CRM and loyalty strategies, customized communications and analytics – all fueled by data and presented with great design. This combination results in stronger customer relationships and measurable ROI for our clients. They look forward to working with more like-minded clients to create great work that delivers.
Conversion Marketing-Communications Inc. is a finalist in the Direct Marketing category for our 2016 CAMP Marketing Awards. Winners will be announced at CAMP’s Awards Gala on November 2nd. To learn more about the event, please visit: https://www.eply.com/CAMP2016Conference-AwardsGalaAbout Author:

Cory is a recent graduate from the University of Guelph, Bachelor of Commerce, Marketing Management program. He is currently interning for CAMP, learning the tools to becoming a sophisticated marketing professional. He can be reached directly by email at corygeorgiadis@yahoo.ca or through twitter @corygeorgiadis.